Customizations #3

Rename Outlook Express Do you use Outlook Express 5.0 or higher? Are you up for a little tweaky personalization of your e-mail/news client? Well then, here’s a quick tip.

Launch Regedit and drill down to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0.

Right-click a blank part of the right pane and choose New/String Value.

Name the new value WindowTitle.

Now right-click the new value and select Modify and type in whatever name you’d like. Something catchy like Bob’s E-mail Client would be just smashing, no?

Close Regedit and reboot.

Enjoy!

Take Control Of Scan Disk The standard settings for Scandisk are probably best left as they are, however, if you have some special circumstance that calls for a modification this is how you do it:

Find a file called MSDOS.SYS the root directory of your hard drive.

Right click it and change the attributes so that is no longer a “Read only” file.

Make a copy of it as a back up just in case something goes wrong (hold down the Shift key, right click it and choose Open with…, uncheck the box and open it with Notepad then choose File/Save As). Name the new file MSDOS.BAK and just leave it there in the root directory.

Get The SendTo Power Toy To Actually Work In Win9x And Win2K The PC911 Forum continues to be the source of extremely helpful information. In this case, poster extraordinaire and all around swell guy (and author of the excellent FixPx.inf fix listed elsewhere here) Steve Yandl, has come through with yet another winner for all you nice surfers and surfettes out there. (Important note: The .inf files in this package assume your respective Windows installations, whether Win9x or Win2K, are in the default locations; C:\WINDOWS for Win9x and C:\WINNT for Win2K. If your OS is located elsewhere, regardless of the reason, either do not implement this tweak, or edit the applicable .inf file using Notepad accordingly.)

How many of you have tried to install Microsoft’s free SendTo Power Toy in Win9x? The Any Folder feature is a great addition to the Send To menu for power users like yourselves, but unfortunately it adds a number of other useless flotsam to the mix. Even worse, it disables the existing standard Send To Desktop (create shortcut) feature while it’s at it. Bummer. But thanks to Steve, the solution is at hand. This is what to do:

Download this zip file: SendTox.zip to a temporary directory and unpack it.

You should now have six files in your temporary directory, Instructions.nfo, Killsndtoy.inf, Readme.txt,Sendtox.dll, Win2K_KillSndToy.inf and Sendtox.inf.

Right click on Sendtox.inf and select Install from the context menu. Allow it to complete the installation.

Test the installation by right clicking any file in Windows Explorer. You should see several new additions to the Send To menu, one of which is Any Folder…. If you check further you should find that your Desktop (create shortcut) menu item is no longer functional. It’s OK, don’t worry. Read on.

Now, you Win9x folks right click on Killsndtoy.inf (Windows 2000 folks should use Win2K_KillSndToy.inf) and select Install. Allow a few moments for the file to complete it’s job.

When you check your Send To menu now you’ll find that the Desktop (create shortcut) item now works again, just as it did before. Additionally, those other entries to the menu are dead. The now defunct files added by Sendtox.inf are: Clipboard As Contents.ContentsOnClipboard, Clipboard As Name.NameOnClipboard, Command Line.CommandLine, Internet Mail Recipient.InternetMailSend, Mail Recipient CMC.CMCSend, Mail Recipient MAPI.MAPISend. You can delete them from the SendTo subdirectory (location dependent on your OS).